California state superintendent candidate Richard Barrera drew criticism Tuesday from his opponent and education advocates after telling UC professors it was their job to teach students who arrive without basic math skills and rejecting the return of standardized testing requirements as the University of California confronts growing concerns over college readiness.
Barrera, president of the San Diego Unified School District Board of Education and a senior policy advisor to state superintendent Tony Thurmond, made the comments during a Sunday interview with NBC Los Angeles political reporter Conan Nolan. Barrera was asked whether the SAT should return as a requirement for the UC system as professors raise alarms about students entering elite universities without foundational math skills.
"Absolutely not," Barrera said. "So math teachers at UCLA and Berkeley and every place else, part of your job that you get paid by the taxpayers to do is to teach our kids."
Barrera told Fox News Digital that concerns about UC students being unable to perform basic math were "completely overstated," arguing that some incoming students instead just need review in subjects they had not studied recently, and that universities shared responsibility for helping them catch up.
"I do think that this idea that students are coming in not knowing fractions is completely overstated," Barrera said. "What we're seeing is students who take a placement test, in the summer before they attend their freshman year at UC, who might miss questions on algebra, on trigonometry, maybe subjects that they haven't had in a couple of years. That's just about review and acceleration."
"This is not about students who are incapable of doing the work," he added. "This is about students who need some review and acceleration, and it is the responsibility of UC to participate in that acceleration."
Chino Valley Unified School District Board President Sonja Shaw, Barrera's opponent in the November race for state superintendent of public instruction, told Fox News Digital that his response shifted responsibility away from California's K-12 education system.
"Richard Barrera heard professors at Berkeley and UCLA sound the alarm that incoming students can’t do elementary-school math and his immediate response was to blame the professors. Not the students. Not the system that passed them along. The professors," Shaw said.
"His brilliant solution? Force college faculty to teach remedial middle-school math on the taxpayer dime, and claim that bringing back the SAT is somehow ‘exclusionary,’" she added. "That’s not a plan. That’s a career politician scrambling to cover up a failure he helped create."
Corey DeAngelis, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital that Barrera's opposition to standardized testing protected California's K-12 education system from accountability for students reaching college without foundational math skills.
"Richard Barrera’s answer tells you everything you need to know about who he works for. The California Teachers Association is bankrolling his campaign for state superintendent, and he is returning the favor by protecting the system from accountability," DeAngelis said.
Nolan followed up by asking Barrera whether professors at some of the country's leading universities should be responsible for teaching students fractions. Barrera said some students had overcome significant obstacles to reach those campuses.
"Listen, we've got students who are coming up from incredible experiences, first-generation students overcoming so many barriers to be on the campus," Barrera said. "Those students are capable of learning quickly. What they need is a little support to be caught up. What they don't need is to be excluded."
Tina Descovich, CEO and co-founder of Moms for Liberty, told Fox News Digital that students arriving at college without foundational skills reflected problems that began years before they reached a university classroom.
"A child who can't do fractions at 18 was a child who couldn't do fractions at ten, and the system knew it," she said. "Richard Barrera's solution is to make it a college professor's problem and continue to cover up the failures of the status quo. Parents in California have watched their kids get passed along for years. Now they're being told the people who did the passing along deserve a promotion."
The exchange came months after more than 1,400 faculty members signed an open letter calling for SAT and ACT math requirements to be restored for STEM applicants. By August, more than 3,000 faculty members had signed letters raising concerns about academic preparation.
California's state testing results show a similar proficiency gap before students reach college. According to the state's 2024-25 Smarter Balanced assessment results, 30.49% of 11th graders met or exceeded the standard in mathematics, compared with 56.96% in English language arts.
DeAngelis said that those results undercut the argument that students reaching college without foundational math skills merely need additional support once on campus.
"About 30 percent of California 11th graders meet math standards," he said. "That result is not a story about first-generation students who just need a little catch-up once they reach campus. That failure is a system that handed out diplomas without requiring mastery, then blamed the score for noticing."
Barrera defended his opposition to restoring the SAT or ACT requirements in UC admissions, saying that concerns about students needing additional academic preparation predated the university system’s decision to eliminate standardized tests and arguing the exams had historically excluded some applicants.
"It's not the elimination of the SAT, you know, that is what we need to look at," Barrera said. "The question that we all need to be asking ourselves is, what are the best strategies to get students prepared for college-level math? And simply having a placement exam like the SAT, which is historically discriminatory towards students of color, towards first-generation students — it's a tool that has historically excluded students."
"Why would we reinstitute that, knowing that that has shown no relevance in helping improve students' preparedness for college-level math?" he added.
The UC Board of Regents' current admissions policy prohibits SAT and ACT scores from being used in its comprehensive admissions review, but the university system is now formally reconsidering standardized testing.
Shaw said that the state should instead focus on whether students master core subjects before reaching college.
"Students are not helped by being lied to about their skills," she said. "They’re helped by actually learning to read, write, and do math before they get to college. That requires high standards in K-12 enforced consistently and measured honestly."
"It does not mean turning UCLA and Berkeley into expensive elementary schools and then blaming the faculty for noticing the problem," she added. "Lowering the bar one more time will not fix a decade of failure. It will just hide it longer."
[Image text:] Reep Schoelt Cinda